The Moon and The Master
by PotterforPresident1997
Summary: Harry steps off the ledge of his own world, and literally falls into the world of monsters and greek gods and goddesses. Emerging as an unknown player at the resurfacing of dangers the world had forgotten, will he save the world again, or take it down with him? All the while, a silver-eyed Goddess of the Hunt watches him closely, her arrows, she keeps trained on him.
1. Chapter 1

The December Sun heralded twenty girls in silver parkas running through a wildlife park, chasing after an animal which changed aspects: at one instant, when sunlight didn't fall on it, it seemed to be a mythical creature, a manticore; while when sunlight did fall on it, it was suddenly seen as a stag running through the wild. The girls that were chasing it made the tough deed of climbing over fallen trees, jumping from a tree, and barreling through the littered floor and dense vegetation look like easy. Leading them, was a twelve-year-old girl with auburn hair and a determined face, a silver bow and arrow in her hands. The manticore had reached a big oak tree, and the girls had trained their arrows on it. The manticore turned back and shouted,

"This is against the Ancient Laws! The demigod should've fought me! You have no right for intervention, Goddess of the Hunt!"

"I have every right." The auburn-haired girl said calmly, her silver eyes flashing. "As the Huntress, Goddess of the Hunt Artemis, I have all rights to hunt and kill monsters, them being chasing demigods or not. You will die."

And Artemis let loose an arrow which would've hit the manticore straight in the head, but for the dark aura that flashed around him, and entire radius of ten metres, making the huntresses of Artemis shiver at the death and desolation whispered by the aura. Artemis narrowed her eyes and notched five arrows at once, and fired into the dark smoke billowing around the Oak. No scream of impact came. Instead, the smoke cleared, and let them see a strange sight.

A man in his thirties stood where the center of the smoke had been. He wore long flowing dark robes; His hair was long and messy, and looked a bit unkempt. He had a light smattering of beard on his cheeks, and his sharp profile and quick, brilliant emerald eyes spoke of a battle-hardened man, as a hand that was raised in front of him grasped five arrows which was in the direction straight to his heart. Through the light, a faint, lightning scar could be seen in his forehead, though it was mostly covered by his dark hair. His pale face had an expression of curiosity, as he examined the silver arrows. Then, he lifted his gaze, and looked around, and the girls in silver, led by the Goddess of the Hunt, came into his view. He raised his eyebrows, and his face scrunched in concentration, like he was trying hard to remember something. Evidently he did remembered, for he turned to the auburn-haired girl with a wince.

If Artemis had managed to read through the man's mind which she was spectacularly trying and failing to do, then she would've been scandalized by what ran in his mind:

 _Ugh. Why is my life always consisting of a dangerous, redhead girl, always?_

But since Artemis couldn't know this, she took her failure to scan his mind as indication of him being a Titan or a Giant or something more sinister, though his aura of death and devastation seemed a lot like her uncle Hades to her. But she could clearly tell this man wasn't Hades. And he clearly hadn't expected to be here, judging from his surprised face. Better to intimidate him and get the truth out.

She notched and arrow again, and asked, "Who are you, Stranger?"

The man regarded her for a bit, and then stepped forward, maybe to introduce himself. Wrong move. Immediately, twenty arrows (Artemis noticed later that the Huntresses had also fired) ran at him. What surprised them most was that he didn't duck or evade them, but like on instinct, raised up a hand, and a golden mist shimmered into existence around him, against which the arrows clattered uselessly and fell to the ground. His shoulders visibly tensed and his gaze hardened. Evidently, he hadn't expected to be attacked like this.

"You would attack an unarmed man who hasn't given you any offence yet?" The man, Artemis and her huntresses noticed, spoke in a soft, boyish voice. Unfortunately, it is only Artemis who could detect the undercurrent of a deceptive danger in his voice. She raised up a hand and her companions relaxed their holds on the bows a bit.

"You interrupted my hunt." The Goddess of the Hunt said bluntly.

"And you think it fit to kill a man for that transgression?" the man questioned in that same boyish voice.

Thalia Grace, Artemis saw, was asking for permission to speak; with a nod of her head, she granted it. The daughter of Zeus shifted a bit closer to the man, and asked,

"Since you're using "man" in asking us questions, can we assume that you are just a man?"

It was certainly an odd question but Artemis saw the logic of it. Thalia, as ever, had chosen to get the basics out of an unknown entity before judging them fully. Artemis was really interested in what the man might answer, however, because she knew perfectly well that the entity was certainly not a God, maybe not even a Titan, certainly not "just" a human being, could be a new sort of monster that Tartarus vomited out.

The entity, however, regarded Thalia cooly for a bit, then asked, "When can somebody become "just" a man? Or where can one start or stop being only a man?"

Thalia was royally confused by the rhetoric; she heard her Mistress answer though, "You ask the questions to wrong people. We are not authorities on men and certainly never care in being."

The man moved; arrows flew at him due to the unexpected movement, but met only thin air. The huntresses looked around in apprehension, till one shrieked at seeing the man not outside the ring, but _inside_ it, towering over their apparently twelve-year-old Goddess. Arrows were trained on him with a lightning speed, till Artemis raised a hand to stall them; the man had not moved from where he stood in front of her and she had twin daggers ready in both hands if he tried anything.

However, the man did not seem to even notice the training of the arrows on him; instead, he placed his quiet, unnerving stare on her. Artemis felt a wave of apprehension wash over her; curiously though, it was not due to her detecting any lust in him which might have suggested his reason for him practically ogling her. She felt the apprehension because she could detect nothing. _Nothing,_ except emptiness from this man. Or, not a man.

With that emerald gaze burning into her silver eyes, she heard the man speak, the boyishness in his voice now gone. Instead, antiquity entered the voice; it sounded distant, as though coming over from millions of years in the past and, in the same time, millions of years in the future.

"You are not a human being. You are seemingly immortal, death being temporary for your body, you mind, memories and thoughts surviving the regeneration process. You have not even had a temporary death yet. There is something…an immense power, sensible enough within you. What is this? You are one with the wild-I can smell the wet evergreens as well as dry cacti about you, if not the curious smell of the tiger and the dexterity of a gazelle. Your face is continuously shifting just as your body-you are a child and you are an adult. What are you?"

"Perhaps, stranger, we should be asking you the same question, though only the last part." Thalia tensely said.

The man turned towards her.

"You are also not fully human. I can see a woman in you….and something else. Not human. Your death will not be temporary, but you are still immortal. I don't understand this. This is a strange immortality…."he muttered off.

Artemis took the opportunity to question him,

"You sound well versed in the idea. Are you an immortal too?"

He brushed his hand aside, as if swatting an annoying fly.

"Neither does it have any use for me, nor do I have any use for it."

The enigmatic answer puzzled them all immensely; Artemis stored the conversation away; something told her to be distracted in presence of this man by his strange rhetoric would be suicidal.

"I am Phoebe Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the Hunt and these are my huntresses." She gestured around her. "Who are you, stranger?"

"A greek goddess? I remember reading about you. Do you not hate men in general?" The man asked, intrigued.

"They are too fleeting for outright hatred, but it is true that I hold no love for men or their affairs." Artemis replied coldly.

"Such strange is this world!" the man exclaimed with wonder. "I never did think I'd ever stand before any Greek gods or goddesses, much less the one most likely to attempt a butchering of me."

"Insult our Mistress, stranger and we will make that also come true!" Thalia hissed, hands shifting to her dagger at her waist.

The man's eyes widened and he raised up his hands in surrender. "I meant no insult, just surprise."

"Be that it may, one does not like to hear libel about them being wantonly violent." Artemis snapped, and continued, "We have had enough of your theatrics, stranger. You will give us a name and you will come with us to Olympus. Let the _entire pantheon_ of Greek Gods and Goddesses meet you."

The man till now had been listening with a smile, but it turned down into a grimace and his eyes hardened. "Phoebe Artemis of the Hunt," he said, as darkness again began diffusing into the air around him, as the ambience of the setting became intensely threatening again, "I did not know you before. I did not attack you, I have no intentions to offend you except accidentally and I do _not_ like being ordered. I am not an enemy to you to be snapped at or ordered along to meet your fellow immortals. I will go in my own time and I will give my name when I think it required. This has, in truth, been a most unpleasant experience I would not think repeating again."

He turned and a thin stick materialized in his hand and a red glow lit on it, which was the cue for many things happening: seeing the threat, Artemis immediately drew her daggers and sliced up with them, across his back, while five huntresses in front of him released five arrows straight into his front and Thalia tripped his leg, leading him to fall face first on the ground.

He lay there motionless.

Artemis rolled his body so that his face could be visible. He was a gruesome sight indeed. His eyes were opened in a glassy stare, while five arrows sprouted from his chest and stomach and twin slashes gouged deep into his back, his leg bent at an awkward angle from the fall.

Had they killed some being who they still did not know of? Had they killed a man, or had they killed a monster, or had they killed a titan?

Even as they watched, the body tightened and slowly turned, from flesh and blood, to stone and then broke apart into dust over Artemis's hands.

They rose, wary of the deed that had been done and no less befuddled or apprehensive.

Artemis commanded them to scatter the dust and return back to the camping site and they trudged back, all of their mood somber, thinking whether they had just transgressed or killed an unknown immortal, or whether they had committed a greater crime by killing a man. But they again thought of the thin stick and a red glow, and fear gnawed at their hearts at the possibilities those two happenings might have opened up.

Artemis was disturbed, not in conscience; she of all knew the best that it was a kill-or-be-killed world, so their acting upon the slightest chance of danger hadn't been a wrong choice at all. What disturbed her was her inadequacy of knowledge about the entity's identity in understating whether it had been a _kill_ at all. Warily, she warned everyone to stay on guard and was startled to see shining green near her tent, in the dark. With a bow, she inched towards it, till Thalia emerged from behind her and shone on the torchlight-upon which the green was revealed to be the curiously emerald eyes of a black as the darkest night cat, that sat still and watched them , body tensed. Both Goddess and Lieutenant released a sigh of relief, the former returning to their camp, the latter shooing the cat off, which reluctantly stood up and walked away.

Thalia and the others sat up late that night, talking of the day's events when she brought up the subject of the cat and saw the other's furrowed eyebrows and rapidly widening eyes.

A moment later, Artemis had been roused from her sleep and all of them were out, scouring around their campsite for the cat. It was not found.

As Artemis went back to her tent, thunder crashed overhead suddenly with rain. She looked up warily. Her father was warning something through the thunder, which he rarely did. There was _intent_ in that thunder rather than nature.

The dark tent was illuminated in the next crash of thunder and it only then that she saw it. On a lone wooden chair that had not existed before, a small, black cat, with eyes like emeralds sat still, watching her unblinkingly.

In the next crash of thunder that lit up the room, a naked, lean, man lounged in the chair, hands crossed, black hair clouding his face through which his eyes shined, emeralds. He raised a hand and though she could still sense the thunder rumbling and rain falling, the sound completely stopped, a deathly stillness around them. She inched towards the tent flap and threw the dagger at him only when she encountered the invisible force that prevented her from exiting the tent-for some odd reason, the dagger did not leave her hand. A small force, she felt, defied gravity and pushed the dagger back into where it came from. That is when Artemis became aware of the fact that she could not hear anything from outside, could not go outside, could not wield her weapons here, while the entity sat still as rock in the darkness, only the green eyes glowing.

With the next flash of thunder that illuminated the room, she saw another chair in front of him, definitely non-existent before. He motioned towards the chair and she gingerly sat on it, ready to bolt any second.

The man looked down his naked body, his gaze lingering, then looked up and surveyed Artemis. For a moment, it looked like he was contemplating something, but then he shrugged and left himself unclothed, and leaned forward just a bit, pushing the hair out of his eyes when he spoke.

"I'm impressed, Phoebe Artemis. And we have a stormy night to talk over what I do not know about this world. I'm known to some as the Master."

"Of?" Artemis questioned frigidly.

"If you have to ask, Artemis, you shall never know. But if you do know, you need only ask." Came the reply, as thunder flashed overhead, again. "We have much to talk about.


	2. Chapter 2: The Journey Begins-Part 1

**Thank you so much, my reviewers and all who favourite this work and are following it! The inspiration from your appreciation is what drives this story! So review and tell me what you think of it!**

This time, Artemis could hear the thunder at last, signifying that the enchantment that had been placed to mute it had been lifted somehow. She looked at the person responsible for that.

The Master hadn't raised any hand or was responsible for any gesture that might have lifted the enchantment from the blaring of her father's element. Artemis felt even more wary at the subtle but strangely blatant display of power. She was also feeling a bit tensed, more because of the casual way he was inflicting his unnerving stare on her, discounting the fact that his eyes never left her face or observed her body, which had unconsciously changed to that of a twenty-one year old from its previously twelve-year old form, though Artemis now wondered if it was any sort of a psychological defence mechanism against the quite naked male sitting, or, practically lounging in the chair opposite her.

He chose, she saw, to keep the darkness within the tent, though she was pretty sure he could light it up if he wanted to; an observation which did nothing to calm her fears of what kind of an immortal he might be to court darkness so easily. In the brief flashes of lightning, he looked a bit gaunt, with eyes somewhat sunken yet shining with an unnatural emerald glee from their sockets; his beard was light enough to show that his cheeks were sunken, giving his face a hollowed look. He was not muscled as she had seen her fellow immortals being, but though thin, his spindly fingers promised power, a power she had already seen and did not want to see again. She wondered, for the millionth time, if he was sitting over here so calm, then who was the one they had killed back in the forest? How could he regenerate and rise so fast? Or did he not die in the first place? Unbidden, some words of his again came back to her mind.

"Immortality has no use for me, nor do I have any for it."

What kind of an immortal could say these words? For all Artemis knew, their perspective and their immortality was the only thing that defined them from the mundane, mortal world of humans. She had her huntresses who had been granted a sort of pseudo-immortality; the fully immortals, she knew of, could come back even upon being killed, but required hundreds of years to do so. She had never died. The only time she came close to it was in the Gigantomachy and she had survived perfectly. She did not understand mortality except simply knowing that death was permanent for them until the Doors of Death opened. Her thoughts were interrupted though, with-

"You're asking the right questions at the wrong time, Goddess of the Hunt." The boyish tone had come back again with the shimmering danger underneath.

"I have not asked you anything yet." Artemis replied carefully.

"True, but you did think of it. Mortality is a concept quite simple but strangely mind-boggling to immortals, I'd say. The best way of learning about mortality is to be mortal oneself, not simply going down there and fucking some mortal or two for some time and coming back." The Master replied with amusement.

The jibe at the Gods' antics were not lost on Artemis and she felt no desire to defend the behaviour of her fellow male gods, her father included. She chose to deflect the topic rather.

"You ask many things of me. Will you not tell me where you are from? We have never seen a being like you."

The Master sighed and looked up. Artemis followed his gaze, and gasped.

The roof of the tent had been rendered transparent; she could see the thunderbolts dancing across the sky like giant serpents traversing the length of the sky; the rain falling quite hard and the clouds shifting in the reddish sky. Even as she watched, in the west, a cloud shifted its position to reveal a star, shining bright and true. In the east, the clouds looked to be in war among themselves, constantly merging and splitting and shifting, till, a portion of the clouds moved and she saw a silver comet travelling across the sky.

It felt…..

"Magical?" The Master whispered from beside Artemis.

"You can read minds?"

"No, Goddess. The mind is not a book to be opened and shut or read at will. I can only read people, sometimes."

Artemis looked down and stared sideways at him.

"Why are you here?"

"I was curious enough to see what lay in the other side of the Veil."

"What's this "Veil" you speak of?"

He smiled, a gaunt smile. "Neither would I be able to explain it to you, nor will you be able to understand. Suffice it to say I came searching for a new world and I might just say that I found an interesting one in exchange. A world filled with Gods and Goddesses…"

"Did your world not have divine beings?" Artemis asked, curious.

"It does not end well for those who wanted to rule over others in the way you speak of divine beings in our world." The Master answered simply.

"Was there any such being?"

"Yes, there was."

"What happened to him?" Artemis asked with a growing sense of trepidation.

There was pause for a moment. Then, thunder flashed overhead again and in that light, she saw him smile a twisted smile.

"I destroyed him." His foregoing of the word _killed_ was not lost on her.

She took a step back and readied her daggers again. She knew that maybe this time also they might not be allowed to leave her hands, but all the same, they gave her reassurance.

"And do you wish to do the same to divine beings here?" She demanded.

"Why will I have any need of that unless you give me one?" the gaunt man wondered aloud.

"We killed you." The Goddess of the Hunt stated in all its simplicity.

"Tut, tut." The Master said. "Just because you see something, Goddess, does not necessarily make it true. Death and life are but illusions." He laughed.

Artemis shivered unconsciously; she said, "We had a war some days back with Titans, the ones who were here before us." She carefully monitored his expression to understand whether or not he was a risen Titan or their accomplice.

He showed no expression; he was like a stone statue in the darkness.

Artemis continued. "We almost lost it, but for a young hero, still in his boyhood. He is named….Percy Jackson. He duelled Kronos, my grandfather and the Titan who controls Time and won narrowly."

He was reminded of another boy, fighting a losing war and duelling an undefeatable enemy till a sudden victory. Which is why he almost missed what Artemis said next.

"However, he's gone missing now. I don't know where he is…Olympus has been barred to me by father for some reason and I cannot hear him speak clearly in the thunderbolts. My brother Apollo, the God of Light, is nowhere to be found and I fear there is mischief afoot for the Greek demigods."

The man stroked his chin for a moment, then rose up. Artemis impulsively averted her eyes from his naked physique, to which he ruefully shrugged and the next instant, boots and armour of a strange scaly kind adorned him, adapting closely to his thin body, over which a dark robe was thrown to hide the armoured appearance.

"Are there only Greek demigods here or is there any more brood of your gods?" He asked.

Artemis hesitated for a bit, then told him, "There are our Roman counterparts and the….roman demigods."

He tilted his head for a bit, then leaned down to look her straight in the eyes.

"Diana?" He softly said.

In response, her eyes turned from grey to burning silver, her clothes turned to light-weight armour and a nimble, silver bow appeared in her hands while she grew somewhat taller and her hair turned auburn and lengthened.

"Just as I thought. Bloody dual personality disordered divine beings." The Master sighed.

"You look like you'd be travelling. Can you…can you help us out over here? We're scattered and I do not know what's happening to the demigods and the Roman camp might not allow us to enter because of a….mishap." Artemis hated requesting, but she knew when she had to do it.

"Puny humans calling themselves Romans for a change does not let a Goddess enter because of a..mishap?" He asked, eyes shining with mirth.

"Yes."

"Well, then, I might just pass by them. They sound like excellent people who are right up my street. I feel we will meet again, Phoebe Artemis of the Hunt, whether I want it or not. Till that, I would suggest you tighten your security around your camp. It is quite easy for a normal cat to enter your camp if everyone idiotically goes out in a futile search for something, with the Goddess herself involved."

She felt the force restricting her exit dissolve and she turned to experimentally flip the tent exit. When she had seen to it working perfectly and turned back again, both the chairs had vanished, as had the man occupying one of them.

(Six hours later)

He jumped down from the last tree and came to the clearing at last.

The fortress looked pretty intimidating; the walls were high as well and the river that flowed around the walls were pretty deep. He would have to swim; something about the river beckoned him in, not letting him teleport.

The Master waded into the river, casting a featherlight charm on the armour first so that it didn't hamper him. He had just passed the middle of the river when he felt a tug on his armoured feet and he instantly knew that something had tried to take off a good chunk from his leg. Sighing, he went down. Which is why he did not notice the people spilling from the gates onto the shore as if from any sort of automatic signal from the river about a potential strife taking place in it.

His attention was on the thick, scaly, spike-adorned head of the sea serpent that had tugged at both his heel and his attention. He sighed.

Two intricately devised cutting curses met the sea serpent, shearing off its twin horns that might have impaled the Master. The serpent rolled its body and tried to crush him in its grip, but he used the advantage of his lean body to a maximum, and snaked out of its potentially lethal grip. But a strong hit from its tail had the Elder Wand sailing out of his hand and the next second he knew, twin fangs had sunk onto his stomach, through the armour. Through the blinding burst of pain, the Master saw the serpent's eyes widening in triumph. However, it balked later at the bloody grin of the Master.

Because at the next instant, the spindly hands of the man closed around its fangs, and instead of prying it out, he pushed it in deeper and at the same time, more into his bloodstream, where he knew along his blood, the poison of the basilisk also ran in his veins.

With the magic and intent he fed that poison, it overcame the futile poison of the sea-serpent; long residence in the magical waters of the rive had already dilated the potency of its poison and now, the Master, with a wave of his hand, channelled the basilisk poison back through the fangs into the serpent itself, which began thrashing wildly.

The Elder wand back in his hand, he let it go, and ran up on its scaly, spiky backside and lodged himself on his head and cast an overpowered _Wingerpowered Leviosa_ on it, resurfacing with the huge serpent over the waters of the river, casting a dark shadow over the fortress and the people that he now saw had spilled onto the banks of the river.

Grinning wildly, he pulled out the medium-sized ruby encrusted silver sword from his belt where it materialized and feeling the wildness of that twelve-year old in that Chamber, drove it through the brain of the serpent. It lurched for a moment and fell to the waters then. He jumped from its head and now relishing the free air and the freedom of teleportation, turned, vanishing and reappearing, blood and gold-covered, sword held loosely by his side, in front of the people, who, he noticed now, were all armoured and aiming their spears towards him.

"Well, Hello." He jovially said as he wiped off the blood from his sword. "Didn't quite expect a Roman welcome to be like that, but," his smile turned feral and then again warm, "You are all New Romans, so it's a new thing for new beings, I'm sure."


	3. Chapter 3: Viridis luscus tribulatio

The Master's grin faltered then, as none of the Romans changed their facial expressions, instead, the people swarming out of the gates of the fortress quickly solidified into a semicircular formation with columns of ten men or women each; a shrill cry sounded from the back, as burnished, round copper shields swung into their arms and each thrust it out towards their left, so that the right side of their shield protected their left side, with the left side of the shield now shielding the hitherto exposed right sides of the person immediately left to them. There wasn't any indication of swords; if they were there, then they weren't visible. Instead, spears protruded from between the shields, pointed straight at him. They had all encircled him in a matter of minutes, with him only having the river to his back. The Master felt a bit dazed; he had never seen such quick manoeuvring. He'd of course heard about the famed armies of the Romans, but to see them here, in front of him, poised for kill….the Master knew he could not die; death was temporary for him and he was always reborn with his memories and body intact, but the few times he had been forced to death, the pain had been unimaginable, because he subverted the laws of nature in re-knitting his body and coming back; nature, being a bastard as usual, punished him as much as it could, making the process of inhumane pain. The Master did not want to be captured; he knew about roman processes of interrogations and knew well about how Romans knew more about binding entities to questions than they should have been allowed to know. His thoughts were derailed, however, by the figure that strode out from within the columns, with obsidian armour, and blurs of gold and silver at its side.

Her black hair was tied up into a bun with a dart that the Master surmised could probably be shoved through the throat to kill; maybe that was why she had used it. She was literally dressed to kill. Intricate patterns ran across her armour, perfectly shaped to her body. Hint of purple round her collarbone confirmed the fact that she was a leader. The Master couldn't remember what it should be for the corps-Paton? Pratun? Protan? Prateur? Pra-Oh Merlin yeah, it was _Praetor!_ Dark eyes smouldered from under heavy eyelashes, a frown waving the eyebrows and curiously shaping the lips. Even as the Master watched, enthralled, they grew thinner and thinner, till he shifted his gaze to her hands and saw the five-feet long spear she grasped in her hand. Two dogs sat beside her, growling at him. Curiously though, they seemed to be made up of gold and silver respectively. The woman advanced.

"Who are you that turns up by the Tiber of our New Rome, Stranger?" She asked in a frosty voice, or rather, _demanded_.

The Master held up his hands, taking care to tweak his left index finger. In front of the gaping Romans, his clothes shifted and changed. Previously, he had been wearing dragon-hide armour, but now that very armour twisted and shifted in front of their eyes, turning paler and paler, till it became whiter and became some sort of a battle-skirt which was curiously mailed; the clothes seemed to be indecisive, if even such a word could be applied for them; his upper robes twisted and turned scarlet, becoming heavier till they shone a bloody red armour. The Master winced as he felt the cloth just beneath his head turn hard as it extended up to cover his head, curving, and some sort of triangular nose-guard descended in front of his nose, while he could sense sharp armour scraping almost lovingly, extending and covering his cheeks. The elder wand in his hand twisted and elongated and became broader till it resembled a sword, glistening gold and curved on its sharper side, and a sphere depicting a boar and a spear jutted out from the new armour over his chest, the Master saw with shock. When he looked up though, several of the soldiers who had formed the semi-circle towards him were on their knees, head bent, while the woman in front of him stared at him in shock and disbelief. The Master could see, out of the corner of his eyes, a boy who had a babyish face and had his arrow notched on his bow, drop the arrow and gape at him with half hope and half terror, as if he couldn't believe something.

"Lord…..Mars?" The woman in front of him spoke hesitantly, eyes wide with shock, not fear, the Master noted.

(line break)

Praetor Reyna hated two things most in the whole wide world: the first was of course people using her full name. The second was, of unplanned things happening which she could never predict and chalk out an idea of protecting her Camp from.

She was certainly not accustomed to seeing Gods; she had known intimately only Lupa; she did not even closely know her own mother, only her name.

And Octavian had just told her that the Gods were silent for some reason for a long period of time, which was truly starting to scare her. It had felt like the calm before a storm, for her.

And now, this….man, had waded into the Tiber and had fought a sea serpent which she had not tracked before(she had only read about these before and she had read that they had been hunted into extinction, which is why she had never imagined any of such monsters somehow gaining access to the Tiber. And then, the man had stupefied them all. He had single-handedly defeated the serpent and they had closed ranks around him, thinking him to be a threat.

The unthinkable had happened then. His aspect changed dramatically, almost like Apollo erasing away darkness to reveal the brightness of the Sun, into that which she had always read was of the God of War, higher than her mother.

They had employed standard encircling tactics against Lord Mars. All the sons and daughters of Mars, she saw, were kneeling, hardly able to believe their luck that they were seeing their father.

She whispered very hesitantly, as if she was stepping over flames. "Lord….Mars?"

She felt a tiny bead of perspiration. To her, arrival of Gods were never for good. She knew well they only appeared in times of great crisis; also, she had never had any interaction with a God, on top of that, someone who was deemed Protector of Rome itself and the most volatile of all Gods. She had been so alone, bearing the burden of leading the entire camp, Jason was missing and-

"You're Mars? Roman counterpart of Ares?"

A familiar mop of black hair and sea green eyes, Percy Jackson had stepped out from the crowd, frowning at the God, the tension in him evident in the flexing of his muscles as he gripped his pen-sword tightly in his hand. She did notice that it was not in its pen form.

Reyna felt fear creep in like a frosty wave of ice at the way the impudent Greek demigod addressed the God of War himself.

(line break)

The Master was enjoying his day too much, because he was getting surprises left and right. They had supposedly mistaken him for the Roman God of War, who he had yet to meet and who he really wanted to meet now, seeing the devotion mixed with fear in the eyes of the soldiers around him. But then, a young man had interrupted the whole thing. He had emerged from the crowd, pushed his black hair out of his sea green eyes and had assessed him and asked him in a voice of disdain whether he was the Roman counterpart to the Greek one(which the Master thought was obvious, and that the boy was a blockhead for asking it). The Master loved disdain against superior beings and could immediately tell that this boy had some bad history with the named God, which made him higher up in the Master's list of both respect and disdain. Disdain, because the boy was foolish to have bad history with a superior being; respect because the Master revelled in underlings challenging a superior entity and winning. Also, the boy with his black hair and green eyes and disdainful attitude for authority reminded him of a certain someone…..The Master immediately clamped down on his emotions as well as memories, an icy cold hand slamming that forbidden book shut. He edged forward, noticing the boy had his sword out and was holding it in exactly the right way as not to be disarmed. He had been trained, then.

"What do you think, boy?" The Master spoke in a neutral tone.

The subtle reference to being just a _boy_ didn't enrage the young man, the Master noted with glee. Instead, the man just said,

"Well, I thought you'd be more muscled and sort of _look_ the real deal."

The Master was now face to face with Percy, and he looked into his eyes. He saw pain, desolation, destruction, joy, relief. But the strange thing was, the Master could not tap into and see the memories or thoughts of the younger man; he could only see his emotions. Either the boy knew good occlumency, or he did have a naturally guarded mind, even if he acted like a half-wit.

Percy Jackson stared back steadfastly. He had lost all his memories, remembered only Lupa and the Wolf House. He had desperately raced to be rid of the gorgons trailing him, had swam the Tiber and been almost arrested by the Romans, taken in and put into their worst cohort and amazingly had somehow managed to not bungle up the first War game he ever played and had won. Now, he faced this strange….entity. He was desperate for answers and somehow knew Gods could provide them. He also somehow knew that the divines wouldn't harm him for some sort of a past service done to them; he couldn't recall what had been that service, but he certainly didn't feel any fear at the divines. He didn't remember meeting any God or Goddess before and therefore did not know what to expect. All he knew was that he must be the son of Neptune, the Roman God of Waters, because he had manipulated the Tiber to stop the gorgons before he crossed it. His only possible source of answers lay in the man right in front of him, if he even was a man. But Percy Jackson did a very strange thing then.

He stepped back and let out an audible gasp. He had seen what he had previously missed in the stranger's appearance.

For all the supposed God's supposed love of violence and bloodthirstiness and favouring the colour of blood red, his eyes were very different.

And Percy had never, ever, heard of Ares or Mars possessing eyes the colour of emeralds, nor did he think they'd have one.

"Fa-father? Posei-Neptune?" He asked, voice shaking.

(line break)

The Master felt puzzled as he again felt the magical tug on his clothes-they changed, turning darker and darker, till they bordered on a dark green, with the armour becoming scaly and the elder wand-turned-sword turned suddenly in his hand, elongating and branching out, till amazingly, it became a Trident. He felt the armour around his head vanish and felt his beard elongating till it tumbled down his chest in beads. His hair also elongated and fell straight, smelling mossy and damp all of a sudden.

The kneeling soldiers shot to their feet, a look of disbelief on their face as well as betrayal. The young woman tensed and drew her spear and the dogs by her side barked at the Master, while the hard-eyed young man in front of him stepped back in shock and had his eyes brimming with hope. The soldiers all started murmuring and looked at him with inhospitable glances. Clearly he resembled a God, for they all kept their mouths shut, never daring to speak to him, but their glances told him that he was not welcome there as the previous entity had been. The young woman narrowed her eyes and kept the spear steady.

The Master let out a long sigh and asked her, "Figured me out, have you?"

"What else shall I think of an entity who can take on the hallowed forms of the divines themselves?" She bit out in a harsh whisper, her eyes tightening.

"But I'm not _that_ entity." The Master said with a pleasant smile. He looked at the still awestruck young man and said in a compassionate voice, "Sorry, son. I'm not your father. I'm not Neptune and I'm not an entity of the waters."

"Neither," He turned to the crowd, "Am I a supposed God of War."

"Then why will we _not_ think what we were thinking as to who you were?" Reyna shouted.

"Magic, Praetor Reyna Avila Ramirez-Aralleno." The man smiled a twisted smile, "Magic and intent."

The reply to the question was the spear which he almost received in his face, which he only avoided by swerving his head and catching it with reflexes born out of a lifetime of battling. It suddenly grew too hot in his hand, so he couldn't hold onto it and dropped it, kicking out with his feet at it, sending it back hurling to its owner, who caught it deftly.

Her voice grew dangerous and acidic.

'You. Will. Not. Say. My. Full. Name." She said.

It wasn't an unreasonable request, The Master thought. Privately, he thought it was anything other than a request. He sighed and continued, "As I was saying, Praetor Reyna. Magic and intent. I have the magic and you have the intent. The collective intent in all of you toppled my intent and manipulated my magic to change my appearance. I would like you to note that my physical features aren't changed. I look as handsome as ever, if not more." Reyna snorted. "My eyes didn't change colours, which led this delightful young man over here" he pointed at Percy, "to conjecture that I was his father. I'm certainly not. Not a God. Oh, neither a father, I mean."

"Then what are you?" Percy asked along with Reyna, who asked, "Who are you?" at the same time.

"Many call me the Master." He said with evident glee.

"You're a sadistic bastard indeed." Reyna called out to him in reply.

"Oh yeah, I've been called that too and a lot worse before, you know." He winked at her, at which her frown intensified.

"Anyway, to answer both of your questions, I'm still a classified sort of a being. Even I don't actually know what I am and I don't really think I'd like to share that tidbit of knowledge with anyone. Self-knowledge is, after all, the precious thing which we never want and never get but forever dream of." He finished.

"You have the freeness of the sea to you and I can sense no taint or rot in you. You appear.." Percy frowned and looked up to him, "trustable enough, strangely, Though I know not why. Still, instincts have served me well all this time, so I'll take you as a friend. I call no one Master. I'll call you-"

" _Amicus_." Reyna completed the sentence for him, glaring at him.

"Does that mean I'm your _"friend",_ too?" The Master asked her hopefully, to which she spit on the ground.

"Ah, I thought not. Will I be allowed to come into the city?"

"Guards! Take him to Octavian and let the Augur divine the reasons why he had arrived, then we'll see!" She called out as she called orders for the crowd to go back to the camp.

Percy Jackson's eyes were glittering in amusement as the stranger was led away, whistling a merry tune. He resolved to see if he could enlist the friend in the adventure he would be setting out on for rescuing _Death,_ supposedly. What a strange notion, he thought. He shrugged then. His life was a mere maze of strangeness. What more worth was one more strange person in it?


	4. Chapter 4: The Fog thickens

They took him to a temple over which the sky was curiously dark, threatening a thunderstorm, which never came. As a result, there was very little light inside the temple; a jagged crack ran through the pedestal on which the marble statue stood inside the temple, as if made by a lightning strike. The statue, by itself, was very intriguing to the Master.

For he had never, in his past universe, come in contact with any ancient art that depicted godly beings; he had not known much of art and had not cared much for it. But now though, his views had changed, and changed a lot regarding that issue. Why exactly, is a story for a different place and a different time. Suffice it to say, that he had never before seen any physical rendering of the body of Jupiter, the Roman King of the Gods, and hence was very much interested in what he saw, rather than awestruck.

For the statue was anything but just a marble illusion of the real being; behind the marble, flowing white beard cascading down his chest, and strong, muscular arms holding a thunderbolt to a face which was devoid of emotions yet had a turbulence underneath, there was something which the Master saw. Maybe it was the eyes that played the trick upon him; the apparently lifeless eyes which shone to him as orbs of paradoxical balancing of lust and power and justice-more mercurial than mercury himself, yet more steadfast than Apollo's truth, the balancer of destinies, and, as the Master remembered, the one who chose Achilles over Hector yet doomed both. Another memory flashed through the Master's mind: of a twelve-year-old boy standing, coated in dust and grime, in a dark, half-lit chamber and looking up at another statue, large, tall, imposing, yet ridiculous in the revealed frailty behind its imposing outlook. The Master did not lock the memory away immediately; but savoured it, and found what he had been looking for: there was always a parallel of a promise of hidden violence, in both cases. He decided, then and there, that he had to be more careful with the King of the Gods than he had been with the God's most temperamental daughter.

The sentries who had been assigned to him, he saw, were definitely unnerved by his staring at the statue, and was fidgeting, possibly looking for someone. Though they did not find that someone before the Master himself did.

By squinting a bit hard, he could see a solid mass of shadow under the pedestal of the statue moving, like the shadow of a flitting light. He moved to the shadow, and kneeled down.

A young man sat there, head bent over his work. He had dirty golden hair, and was a sickly looking fellow; he was utterly unremarkable, but only for the fact that he had a teddy bear in his hands, as well as a sharp, hunting knife, and was using the latter on the former with an amazing dexterity, the Master noted. In fact, the young man seemed to almost have a penchant for torture; even as the Master watched, the man tore off neatly the last remaining leg of the bear, and then gutted it, and opened a long gash from chest to belly, and expertly brought out the wool and stuff inside, and threw them on a nondescript fire, the Master for the first time saw, was burning by his side.

As the Master kneeled to observe the man quietly, the man startled, and stopped his work. He decided to throw the teddy bear into the fire itself, and returned the Master's emerald gaze with his cold blue ones.

"The Gods haven't told me of your arrival." He simply said.

"Neither have they told me. Who are you? And why do you worship Jupiter by stuffing teddy bear entrails into fire?" the reply came.

The young man was unperturbed by the jab; he simply said, "They are not supposed to speak with you-obviously they would not tell you. And I don't wish to sacrifice teddy bears to Jupiter if I can help it. We do not have an abundance of humans, and I daresay I wouldn't find many who would consent to having their entrails cut out and burnt in front of them, even if it be for an empire."

The Master replied, "Very true. But you are in New Rome, which is not an empire, as Rome by itself was not, in absence of its conquered states. Also, I doubt the Gods wouldn't want to speak to me. A Goddess herself only compared that for me the night before the last."

The young man sighed rather dramatically. "I suppose. Ah. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Octavian. I am the augur of New Rome: I read the destinies which awaits them at the end of their path. But I cannot see you in the fumes, apart from a single warning from the Gods."

"What is that warning?" The Master asked.

The man told him. The Master turned his head and shook it once a bit, and then went on his way, throwing the words at Octavian: "Tell them not to fear me as long as I do not start to fear them first. I will know more from you, Octavian. Thank you."

As he left, Octavian watched him shrewdly, and decided he would keep an eye on this one for the time being.

It was only when it was time for him to go, that he understood that he had quite forgotten to question him what his name meant.

 _Ah, that could be done another time,_ he thought, and turned to the flames and tried to decode the message again.

It was the same reply.

 _Fear him, just in case._

(line break)

"Don't you three have names?" The Master enquired of his escorts, or rather, guards. They eyed each other nervously for a moment before the girl behind him told him, "I'm Centurion Susan, of the second cohort."

She was tall and heavily built, and had cut her hair short, and had her mouth set in a most determined expression which conveyed the clear warning to the Master for her to be taken seriously; the Master simply nodded and raised his eyebrows at the two other men to his sides. None of them gave their names, but eyed him nervously. The Master understood the subtle message: he was an unknown danger to them, and they would treat him as such. Well, he would have to make do with what he knew until then.

It was only when he passed the small, scowling, pale boy did he detect something enough to stop him in his tracks, as he whirled round, and directly addressed the boy.

"You are familiar with the realms of death, yet still are very much in the living." He merely said. The boy immediately replaced his heavy scowl with a look of black anger and yet confusion: The Master noticed how one hand of his immediately slipped to the hilt of the black sword he carried and held it stiffly, as the boy said, no, not said, but demanded in a low voice,

"Who are you? How do you know?"

The Master gazed at him for a while, and then simply raised his hands-the black sword disentangled itself from the boy's fingers, and floated straight to him-and he caught it by the sharp edge of the blade, and cut his hand on it, trails of red travelling across the black sword now.

"Interesting." The Master murmured. "This sword knows both death and the promise of it-nothing borne of mortal metal can break this one. I have never seen something of this like death-so twisted into an instrument of killing-after all, why need an instrument to kill when a gesture can do it? Take this back, Nico di Angelo."

It was only when the sword had floated back to him, and Nico had grasped it firmly, did he digest what the Master had just said. "Wait!" he turned around. "How do you know my name? Who told you? Tell me!" He yelled.

"I have seen into your heart, Nico di Angelo, and while I must admit that I was very intrigued by what I saw, still, you could do a bit better than blaming yourself for something obviously you never had the power to influence into happening or stopping from happening, and would never have. Oh, and it is most hopeless. Shift onto greener pastures, Nico di Angelo, before you get yourself hurt more." The man continued on.

Nico was aghast, beyond fury. He couldn't believe himself-all the years of carrying around a heavy burden like _that_ , endangering his life to protect another, always misunderstood, and now this stranger comes along and destroys all privacy and secrecy of his very mind and presumes to advise him to _shift_ onto greener pastures? Even as Nico struggled to contain his fury, his power did not-and as a result, the three slack-mouthed guards were the first ever witness of the incident of ground breaking in New Rome and a skeleton emerging with a rusted sword in hand. Nico was beyond horrified himself-what had he done! He ordered the skeleton back immediately-but something was blocking the way. What? Who? Father? Why was Pluto doing this? Did the God want to kick Nico out of New Rome or what?

But there was still surprises to be given, it seemed. The man simply looked mildly entertained, and glanced at Nico's trembling hand, and said as if he was discussing the weather-"Oh, don't hurt yourself over it, kiddo. How is your immortal father going to get his skeletons back without the ground choosing to not give way?" And with that mysterious remark, the stranger strode, and dodging a blow from the skeleton, reached out and touched a rib. In front of Nico's very eyes, the skeleton turned to dust, dust that mysteriously flew into the stranger, who now kneeled on the ground and surveyed the hard surface. "Don't you guys have an immortal being for the earth too?" He asked.

"Yeah-Gaia." Nico said, watching the man carefully. The man's bemused expression didn't change-he simply sighed, and stood up, and walked away, with the three dumbfounded guards following him.

(line break)

"Praetor Reyna." The words were spoken as soon as Reyna had entered her apartment and had thrown down her heavy armour and spear-and she immediately picked her knife from her belt and threw it at the voice-for no one was supposed to be in her room without her knowledge and all those under her knew well to stay apart from her private quarters, and she wasn't a woman who gave second chances. She was quite suspicious that the man who was captured today was there, and somehow knew in her heart that the knife couldn't hurt him. But surprising her, a silver blur dashed past her, and before she knew it, her own knife that she had thrown was at her throat, its flat edge pressing onto the skin, her hands held behind her by another hand, and the kick she readied behind her was brutally beaten back.

"I like your readiness, Praetor Reyna." A soft, female voice spoke at her ear, and then pushed her a little hard, enough for her to narrowly avoid falling on her face. She immediately whirled around in a half-sitting position, but fell back with shock, to see who her accoster was.

As long hair like a stream of fire was swept back, a pale, smooth, slightly cruel, yet uneasy face, with silver eyes and a heavy frown, stooped down towards her. The woman clicked her fingers, and her silver clothing changed to dark green, almost black, that melded her perfectly with the gloom.

"That was too conspicuous, I see." The woman said in a smooth voice.

"L-Lady Diana." The Praetor said in an uneasy voice-none disliked her in New Rome, but none loved her for fear of being on the wrong end of her wrath for doing just that. She had no worshippers-hadn't asked for any; and she had never visited them before-it usually didn't bode well for them when a divine being who had never visited them before visited suddenly.

"Praetor, today at morning, you found a man on the banks of the Tiber, and encircled him. It seems he impersonated several gods, and you decided to bring him in. He supposedly went to the temple of Jupiter and met your augur, and had a run in with the son of Pluto here-and then had vanished. I need you to take me to him."

Soon, the apartment Reyna had marked for her supposed captive had its door blasted open, and Diana entered cautiously, with bow and arrow at the ready and the arrow notched-but it was all in vain. The apartment had never been entered that day. Diana closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened it, she knew. The Master, if that was what he called himself, had, for some reason, decided to vanish from New Rome.

"Who is he? Is he a God we haven't heard about before?" Reyna asked in a tight voice. Diana surveyed her a bit, and then said,

"No. He is not a God. He is a wanted entity-and Olympus has ordered me to look for him. I am his huntress, and he is my prey. Send out all your sniffers and scouts-I want a hundred miles all around New Rome scanned for him. Contact all your ex-citizens in cities throughout the country-I'll have to see what I can do by myself. Do not, except my explicit orders, allow anybody who resembles him to ever enter New Rome again."

"Wait! He-he killed a river serpent we have only read about in the mythical books-something not fifty of us can kill together! Why are monsters like the river serpents coming back-what's happening? We need to know-we need to stay on alert!" Reyna shouted at Diana, who was already moving away.

Diana gave her a long, hard stare. "A river serpent? I certainly didn't hear of this one. Still, this doesn't change anything. Girl, be pleased that atleast you've _read_ about river serpents. _We_ have never heard of any being like him, and certainly do not like what we see. The orders remain the same. Find him if he is within a hundred miles of here-and do not let him enter New Rome of his own volition except extracting an oath from him to not to harm anyone here or either New Rome. But do not, engage him if you see him. The "Master" is _my_ hunt, and I will tolerate no interference here."


	5. Chapter 5: Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill

**Hello there, guys!**

 **I'm sorry I haven't updated in a long time. I was just so swamped with all college work and programs and then exams. It is just now that I've got the opportunity to make the update.**

 **So, read on, and review! This is a slightly longer chapter than the previous ones, and the story is reaching interesting places here ;)**

 **Happy Reading, and again, Review!**

 _Thanatos._

There was a whisper in the air as the weary eyes of the shackled god were immediately on alert. He surveyed the icy surroundings which was entirely bereft of any life, barring the irony that he was, and his ironical predicament. Even at this moment, more and more monsters, cursed demigods and Tartarus' _special children_ were probably spilling through the doors- _his_ doors, the shackled god reminded himself. He who presided over the transition of life into death. He who took all at the end, and decreed the passage even for immortals who fell. None of the gods really wanted anything to have to do with him- Hades certainly did not like him one bit. But, as the chained god shook his head ruefully, he thought.

 _Where were the gods now, now that their enemies ran amok while Death himself lay chained?_

Thanatos hadn't been prepared for the whisper again.

 _You are not Death, Thanatos. You can calm yourself. They are your doors Thanatos, but they are not Death's._

Thanatos' eyes widened.

It was impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

The wind sped up, seemingly, laughing a mad, deranged laugh.

Thanatos closed his eyes. Yes. He must be going mad.

 _MadMadMadMadMadMadMad,_ the wind howled in his ear; he wondered what the wind gods were up to now. Had they joined Gaia too? Why were they doing this?

 _It is not the wind gods, Thanatos. It is I_.

The whisper again! Thanatos could not believe this. No Giant or even primordial could escape his sight if they were not already in the underworld or Tartarus- he had to be always ready to make their transitions to death. How can-?

 _You have felt me before, Thanatos. When you make the transition. At that minuscule, but cosmic point of time-when life becomes death, and death touches life. You have felt my touch, Thanatos, all those times, and you have always wondered about the curious feeling. You have even been scared by it at first. But you have grown used to it. You have shut your eyes to it. You have created an illusion of it as you. You cannot see it, you cannot hear it, you cannot smell it, you cannot taste it, Thanatos. But you know it is there, and that meeting point of ignorance and knowledge is a situation of terror for you, Thanatos. Do you not feel the same now? Are you truly hearing this, Thanatos, or are you only feeling this? Or are you seeing this in the ice around you? Or, maybe you are tasting, smelling this in the wind? Why don't you take a look, Thanatos? Why don't you open your eyes and see?_

A sudden fear gripped Thanatos. He knew what the wind whispered. He knew that feeling. He knew that frustration of ignorance and dread that it was unknowable, like knowing it would drive him mad, whatever drives a god insane.

Of all fears, the supreme of all, was that he would _fade_ if he came to know it.

He would not open his eyes. He would not see it. He would not know it. He could not-

 _Open your eyes, Thanatos._

And the curiosity warring with the inexplicable fear in his heart won, and Thanatos opened his eyes.

And screamed.

It reverberated throughout the mountains, cracked the icy surface of the lakes, brought Alcyoneus out of the nearby cave, hands pressed on his ears, black oil flowing freely from them; mortals in a five hundred-mile radius rushed into their homes in broad daylight and collapsed in sobbing heaps, hands pressed over their ears, hearing their worst fears spoken to them; up on Mount Olympus, the pillars shook, while the King of the Gods finally managed to merge his Roman and Greek aspects at the sudden impact of the astounding pain inflicted by the cry, while monsters stood still for a moment near the Doors of Death, till, the doors and the entire section of the place collapsed bodily, the magic that held them together destroyed violently, barring the immediate way out of Tartarus.

Three miles from the shackled god, Percy Jackson immediately threw himself underwater and created a bubble, in which he took in both Frank and Hazel, and braced for the impact; it came, the reverberations beat upon him, till with a massive blast, he was thrown bodily against an ice shelf, but managed to avoid passing out, struggling with the incredible pain.

And then it ended as abruptly as it had started.

(line break)

Alcyoneus took very, very careful steps towards the shackled god. Has the god managed to break himself free of the chains with that shout? Come to think of it, he couldn't believe a god could ever scream like that-it shook even Pluto's Bane himself.

No, the god hadn't broken free, he saw. But he was slumped. His body had gone entirely limp, his head was bent down.

Alcyoneus nudged his back once with his staff. Thanatos didn't move. Just to be sure, the giant kicked the god in the back; the god flew into the air like a ragdoll, but the shackles held.

"Hey there, you jewelled, oily bastard!" called out a voice.

A voice that the Giant had been waiting for so long.

Percy Jackson, and his puny helpers, and that miserable daughter of Pluto, had come at last.

(line break)

Hazel was trying her best to delay her potential journeying into her father's domain so soon.

She was no Hercules, and the Giant knew that.

Unfortunately, there was no help; Percy himself looked close to death, fighting the shades, while Frank…where was Frank? Wasn't he trying to free Thanatos by burning his-

That one moment of hesitation cost her dearly.

The Giant's iron staff caught Arion in the stomach, and Hazel fell from him, but the impact never came.

She was in the arms of someone, being gently lowered to the ground. Scrambling from the ground, Hazel could only catch a glimpse of icy green eyes, like emeralds shining in the darkness, hollow cheeks, a light beard and shaggy hair, until the man turned away, and she saw Frank slumped on the ice before him. She immediately reached for Frank-

"Do not fret. Frank Zhang is alive. Death does not need a life to free itself, Hazel Levesque." The figure turned its hooded head slightly towards her. "Doesn't it free life itself, as your experiences suggest?" and strode off towards Percy Jackson, who looked to be almost swamped over by the shades.

Hazel watched, open mouthed, as the being ordered- " _Desist, you all."_

And the shades stopped, confused. Alcyoneus shouted, "NO! You answer to my command! Kill Percy Jackson!"

The being disregarded him completely, and simply waved once at the shades. Immediately, they began to dissolve, and slowly turned into a strange sort of a liquid, that the being, Hazel saw, called to him, and absorbed into himself. Sparing Percy a glance, the being looked over at Frank once, and negligently told him, "Up, Frank Zhang. We have much to do. A Giant to kill, for starters. I'm afraid today does not seem to be the day you die."

And Hazel knew that she had looked upon the face of Death, and was not sure if she ever wanted to repeat that.

(line break)

Harry was not having a good time.

Somehow, for some strange reason, this particular giant seemed to be regenerate at a peculiarly fast rate.

Almost, as if, he was truly immortal.

Harry snorted. Nothing was truly immortal- it could not be; or else, lacking any sense of ending, there could not be any beginning. He wondered about the Goddess he had met first in this new world-who had told him the bit about these so-called immortals _reforming_ themselves, or their physical manifestations over a long period of time, once destroyed or slayed. But that did not make sense to Harry. After all, it sounded too close to the theory about soul-anchors, of being able to come back despite destruction of physical manifestations. But if it was the same with these immortals as it was with Voldemort, then, could it be that these beings unknowingly had some kind of anchors that not only held them to multiple planes of existence, but allowed them to travel between the two also? After all, he reasoned, he had heard a lot about these Gods or Goddesses taking on their "true" form, which he thought to be non-physical in nature. Then, that would mean that they could freely use and discard their mortal forms, something which did not sit well with Harry. In his opinion, you had either one, not both; having both meant Death was reduced to being just a temporary state of existence, a fact that nauseated Harry.

 _It is in the nature of things to end, for if they do not, then nothing could begin,_ he thought, as he deflected another blow of the staff wielded by the giant that faced him.

It had certainly been interesting to interact with the chained god and to figuratively, _show him the light_.

After all, the Master of Death does not brook rivals, however much of an impossibility that title might hold in front of his identity.

Thanatos had not been killed, or erased from existence as Harry had done to the shades that had almost overwhelmed Percy Jackson; Harry had simply seen no meaning for that to happen with Thanatos. It would necessarily call down unwanted attention of him, and not of the favourable kind. Also, worse could follow: he did not know how the erasing procedure of this peculiar kind of being would turn out, being so different from the shades-and he did not want to end up creating any kind of a hybrid enemy for himself. So instead, he had _shown_ Thanatos the Master of Death, and what the existence of such an entity was like. He had allowed Thanatos to meet a fraction of what Harry called "Real" Death, that End which was incomprehensible unless it could be experienced. Of course, that would spell doom for Thanatos, and Harry had allowed some of his essence to erode away, and had instead filtered some of his own essence into the chained god; for all intents and purposes, Thanatos was now _him_ , and answered to him. He would carry out his duties to perfection as always and had his free will, but at moments of Harry's choosing, he could take over the entity completely, and regulate his own will through it.

Which was why the god was not fighting a desperate battle with Alcyoneus even though technically he was not an Olympian, hence a minor god; instead, that desperation belonged solely to Alcyoneus himself, who still could not land a blow on the god, who was either ducking and dodging his staff or deflecting it, almost casually, lazily, giving off the strong sense that he was just playing with the Giant; hence Hazel's and Frank's and Percy's expressions of befuddlement, because they surely had not expected to see the death deity _fight_ , and were not entirely sure they wanted to see it.

However, as Harry had previously noted, all cuts he made on the giant closed up immediately; the giant wasn't fatigued at all. If it was a mortal instead of Thanatos-Harry that faced him, then they would have given up and died a long time ago; one simply cannot have that amount of stamina to control the fight against an enemy that regenerated so fast. But unfortunately for Alcyoneus, the Master of Death did not really need stamina, as time mattered to him as a concept, but not as a reality; if he thought so, then time would not have passed for him, from the instant that the Giant had attacked him. And hence the question of stamina refused to matter for him. But Harry knew when he did not know something, and had no qualms about asking for help when required.

"Zhang!" He called, and the burly son of Mars quickly collected his jaw from the icy ground and stood, eyes uncertain, hands taut on his bow. "How do you propose we end this?" the entity asked Frank.

To say that Frank was astounded would be an insulting understatement. Whatever he had imagined Thanatos to be, this entity battling the giant in front of him certainly didn't fit the category. But why was the god asking him for advice in this regard? Frank was confused. Why would the god not know how to kill a Giant, this particular Giant?

"Fuck!" Harry swore, as he spied the doubt in Frank's eyes; he knew that he might have blown his cover. Honestly, the god is supposed to know how to off the Giant-but it was Harry who operated this manifestation of the god now-the entity itself totally suppressed into the back of his mind, along with its memories. To know the way to kill the Giant, he had to let Thanatos take control for once, and in his reduced, almost-comatose state, Harry doubted Thanatos could withstand the Giant one second more on his own. Still, he decided to take the risk.

Just as Frank shouted-"Get him over the border!", Harry relinquished control to Thanatos, and the weary god looked at the Giant and immediately alerted-but that one moment of hesitation finished the fight.

With a mighty roar, Alcyoneus crashed his iron staff against the god in front of him, and it hit Thanatos straight in his side, and with an audible sound, signified that it had crumpled his left side completely. The god flew through the air and landed on the ice, and slumped on it, unmoving. Golden ichor stained the ice all around him.

"NO!" Hazel shouted, and charged Alcyoneus; Percy and Frank closed in on both sides.

And then, after some hours of struggle, they had finally pulled him into Canada, though the Giant did not know it. Till he swatted Percy to the sidelines, effectively knocking him out, and Hazel made the sweet decision to inform him of that fact, and Frank declared that he was the only thing that stood between the Giant and Alaska. The Giant charged him with fury blazing on his face.

Just before Alcyoneus smashed into him, Frank changed. He'd always felt too big and clumsy. Now he used that feeling. His body swelled to massive size. His skin thickened. His arms changed to stout front legs. His mouth grew tusks and his nose elongated. He became the animal he knew best—the one he'd cared for, fed, bathed, and even given indigestion to at Camp Jupiter.  
Alcyoneus slammed into a full-grown ten-ton elephant. He bounced back, but unfortunately, Frank did the same too. You just do not slam yourself into a Giant, even as an elephant, and hope to stay entirely unaffected. Alcyoneus got up on shaky legs, and tackled Frank once more. This time, Frank was the unready one, and he promptly collapsed. Hazel gasped in horror, and Percy desperately tried to get up from the ground, despite his injuries. The Giant looked like he was considering smashing the demigod in front of him to a pulp, but decided in favor of crossing the international boundary first.

The only problem was that there was already someone standing in front of him; in tattered clothes, golden ichor leaking from ghastly wounds in his crumpled left side, desperately supporting himself on an obsidian scythe. The hood had been torn off; matted, shaggy black hair was swept to one side, and steely green eyes looked at him with blazing fury. Alcyoneus checked his stride. In his recent dealings with Thanatos, he had never once seen the being exhibit any emotion, even when he was chained, except maybe weariness. But it was there now, that blinding fury. No matter. It was only the tattered remnants of a godly opponent; Alcyoneus was confident that Thanatos stood no chance against him, especially seeing that his left side was virtually useless. But the giant still charged the god, nonetheless.

The demigods watched in horrified fascination, as the iron staff that Alcyoneus wielded swung towards the wounded god; but Thanatos seemed to grow still for a moment, till he grew transparent, and the blade swung through him without any impact at all. Alcyoneus felt a blind terror.

"This isn't possible! You are not in the States! You cannot have the power here-"

Thanatos stopped him with a blazing run, as he swiped his scythe once. Within seconds, he stood behind the giant now, who slowly rotated around, as both of his legs crumbled, shorn neatly off by the ghastly scythe.

Harry turned around to meet the eyes of Alcyoneus.

"Death is everywhere, Alcyoneus." He remaked quietly.

The Giant still had a hidden trick though, proved by the celestial bronze knife that would have buried itself into Harry's thigh, if he had not twisted at the last moment and gotten only a graze instead.

There could now be no moment of hesitation. Very subtly, the form and structure of the scythe changed, until it shortened and shortened, becoming an obsidian knife, and with it, Harry's movements became a blur, stabbing at extremely unimportant points of the giant's body. The three demigods watched in bemusement, not understanding why the god just didn't take the giant's head off. But they soon got their answer though, indicated by Hazel's gasp.

"He's-He's shredded all the nerves in Alcyoneus's hands!"

 _But why_? Frank thought. Roman military training had the cardinal rule of kill as fast as you can; why was the god-Oh, he thought, his eyes widening and a look of revulsion arising on his face.

Percy was a bit late to get what was truly happening, but even he looked a bit sickened.

For by then, the chest of the unmoving, though still hanging to life Giant had been cut open, and Thanatos had apparently plunged his hand deep within the ribs jutting out, the Giant screaming-but the demigods could hear nothing, a doing of the god, they presumed.

And then, they saw Thanatos retrieve something-something shaped like a huge organ-a heart, or rather, as they saw, the fabled heart of Alcyoneus, made of precious stones, and which changed into a brilliant emerald in the God of Death's hands. He seemed to look at it with a curious expression, then, with a slight pressure of his fingers, the jeweled heart entirely disintegrated within his palm. No golden dust fell-the atmosphere around them darkened, as if, as if, Percy Jackson said shivering to himself, _as if the Giant had been truly ended. Destroyed. Killed. Annihilated. Choose any single word_.

Thanatos swayed once, and fell on the snow.

(line break)

"Is-is he dying?" Percy asked Hazel. "Can Thanatos even die?"

"I don't think so." Hazel said, shrewdly. "He does not seem to be breaking into golden dust anytime soon, though I'd say that he had taken some very nasty injuries. In all probabilities, he's just knocked out. But…" she glanced once at Frank, and Percy understood the meaning of the glance.

It had not been a pretty sight to see the God of Death fight-and they were not sure what to do with the apparently comatose god. But his musings were broken by a cough.

"I take it that you're not exactly a fan of me after that."

The three demigods immediately put some distance between themselves and the god, and Frank's hands went to his quiver of arrows.

"There'll be no need for that, really." The god sat up with a great heave. He was not a pretty sight.

The left side of his face was entirely crushed, and so was his left arm and sides, while there was a long gash below his right knee. His knife lay beside him. He smiled a ghastly smile at them, and it seemed that his one good eye, the right eye was twinkling at them.

"I thank you all for your timely intervention. Especially you, Frank Zhang. But next time, don't put so much faith in a stick." And he incinerated the wooden stub in Frank's pocket with one wave of his hand, as Frank immediately plunged his hands into his pocket and found only ashes. Horrified, he fell to his knees on the ground, while both Hazel and Percy immediately went to charge the god.

Harry laughed, a rich laugh full of merriment.

"Stop, you two. Frank, try seeing a reward for what it is once."

The horror evaporated from Frank's eyes, and was replaced with wonderment, conflict and finally, blind happiness.

"I-I don't need that thing anymore? I'm free? I-I can li-live?" He croaked out.

"Indeed. I don't see you in my list yet, Frank. Neither you, dear." Harry winked at Hazel, whose surprise surpassed Frank's.

"But-but would you be alright? We haven't got any ambrosia or nectar and it's not the Olympian's domain here.." Percy trailed off. The one good eye of the god turned towards him, amusement reflecting in it.

"I'm not an Olympian, Percy Jackson. And as I said to my unfortunate enemy there, Death, is everywhere." With a wave of his hand, gradually, changes began to take place; the gash under the knee healed; the left arm re-set itself with a _crunch_ of bones; the left side of the torso expanded with successive _crunches_ as each rib was restored; and finally, his face was restored completely, along with his left eye, which, Percy saw, didn't match the right. Whereas the right was sparkling green, the left was a silent, menacing black.

"You all better get going to your camp. I sense that many of your brethren are going to die today. Neptune's bane, Percy Jackson, is already there by now, if I'm not wrong. Go. I will have much work to do."

As they scampered off on the Arion-driven chariot, Harry relinquished control to Thanatos, and seemed to be thinking something. Slowly, a smile formed on his face, and he disappeared with a _crack_.

(line break)

Only to appear within a raging battle, within the ranks of Romans, who, having got their phalanxes breached, was fighting on individually for dear life, while afar, Harry saw Percy Jackson challenging Polybotes, Neptune's Bane. It was good, then, that his second rendezvous with the Romans would be hassle-free; they wouldn't notice an extra demigod, would they, now?

He changed into a scrawny twenty year old with curly golden hair and startling purple eyes, resplendent in imperial gold armor and with a _gladius,_ charged the nearest monster he would find.

Reyna had thought of Percy Jackson's return to camp as a godsend, when the Imperial Eagle had struck the monsters with lightning; but not all of them were down, and most of the unaffected ones seemed to have converged around her, determined to take down the only Praetor of the Roman Camp and strike a death blow to the morale of the army; she was fighting for her dear life, as all around her, friends and compatriots fell one by one, till she fought alone.

But not alone.

There was a clang of metals crashing behind her.

Someone had just blocked a strike at her back.

Turning cautiously, she caught a glimpse of golden hair and startling purple eyes, and a lazy smile. The boy, no scratch that-he was a man, however scrawny he seemed-winked at her once, and then, in a flash, stabbed his sword in the gap between her right arm and right side, catching a dracanae straight in its abdomen, incinerating it into golden dust.

"Look out!" she shouted, and the boy immediately ducked, as her sword passed through just where his head had been some seconds back, and caught the hellhound on its maw, cleaving it from jaw to eyes.

"Thanks!" The man shouted back.

Reyna, despite the situation, grinned at him, and turned to her own fight. She had someone at her back to look out for her.

They fought like possessed beings, and the Roman demigods trying to break through the circle thought that they had been possessed by the Gods themselves, for the two Romans, back-to-back, seemed an absolutely unstoppable force of destruction, cutting, slashing, ducking, dodging, stabbing, cleaving the monsters around them. Those who watched them closely could swear later that they seemed to be almost Chaos and Order personified, because the golden-haired man seemed to revel in the mayhem he was generally causing all around, never making a clean kill, while the Roman Praetor ended each monster with brutal and cold efficiency.

Reyna was done. She was _so done_. She had let all of her frustrations and anger and bitterness go-that anger of losing her father to the madness, her sister at Circe's, then Jason, and then Percy Jackson- it was no wonder that she appeared to be such an instrument of death to the monsters who were desperately trying to retreat from her. She was done with all pomposity, all duty, all cold-bloodedness, all politics, all the hurts of life. At that point of time, she was only super-aware of the man fighting behind her, risking his life to protect her, however enjoyment he seemed to be gaining from the brutal massacring of the monsters around them. She couldn't recognize him; with his fighting capabilities, he did not seem to be an ordinary citizen of New Rome; but he wasn't a legionnaire, she knew that.

Did the guy come from the Wolf House, then? But at such an old age….

All thoughts were gone from her mind as she blocked a strike from a nearby monster and pivoted, her momentum bringing her _gladius_ dangerously close to the man's neck, but the man, as if acting on a supernatural instinct, immediately ducked, and shot out his own sword, the strike making Reyna's _gladius_ sail out of her hands, but expertly directed to the neck of a nearby dracanae. Far away, she could see Percy and Terminus dealing the death blow to Polybotes; the war was won?

The WAR WAS WON! The field was theirs!

With tears glistening in her eyes, she turned to meet the startling purple eyes of her fellow fighter, and saw him throw his _gladius,_ which passed directly by her ear, and struck the perhaps last monster rearing up behind her.

It was done. They two stood, the ground glittering all around them with golden dust.

Never had she felt this giddiness which made her feel so light-headed, and Reyna stumbled, straight into the hands of the golden-haired lad in front of her. She looked at him, and drank in the concern in those purple eyes, and let go of all restraints she had imposed on her own self, her mind, her heart- after a long time in her life, she threw all cautions to the winds and acted entirely on her impulse, uncharacteristically, but perhaps, revealing all the more the person she was underneath the feared exterior of a Roman Praetor.

She clutched his armor and pulled him straight to her, and ignoring his yelp of surprise, smashed her lips to his, the giddiness only increasing in her heart, which seemed to be roaring with delight along with the roar of victory by the Roman Army that was lighting up the Field of Mars-a delight that only magnified when she felt the kiss returned.

Up on Mount Olympus, Venus winked once at the grim-faced Jupiter, who sat with an inscrutable expression on his eyes.

None noticed the unconscious hardening of Diana's glare.


End file.
